The Scopes “Monkey” Trial
The year was 1925 and our country was recovering from brutal World War I. People desired for the country to return to normalcy and found comfort in religion. Peace and quiet was returning to main street, but not everyone enjoyed the peace and quiet. There was a small number of people who questioned it, disliked it and orchestrated a means to disrupt it. What better way than to cause the law, the education system and Fundamentalist Christianity to clash in a spectacular fashion? Soon there would be clamor in the streets, mockery of our courts and an arrest of a school teacher! http://siarchives.si.edu/images/research/7091Davis14.jpg
The place was Dayton Tennessee. At the center of the controversy was a Biology Teacher named John Thomas Scopes..
The 24-year-old Scopes was in his first job
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/monkeytrial/sfeature/sf_music.html#
The Scopes trial even inspired a movie! http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/monkeytrial/filmmore/index.html
http://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/scopes/id/74/rec/1
William Jennings Bryan, venerated orator, served as the lead prosecutor in the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in July 1925. A three-time United States Democratic nominee for President, Bryan 's progressive politics aswell as his consistent defense of the ordinary American earned him the moniker "the Great Commoner."
Soon the town erupted with commentary, visitors and people all over the country came to see the trial. So much so that the trial had to be moved outside of the courthouse due to fears the weight of the audience would collapse the courthouse building.
William Jennings Bryan, the prosecution, never delivered his defense speech. He died in Dayton,Tennessee, five days after the conclusion of the trial, on a Sunday.
http://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/scopes/id/116/rec/9